Lots of memory! It can still be optimised because Apache is a pain in the rear, I’m thinking of using nginx to cut down that memory even more (of course, this is an OpenVZ container not a Xen so more memory use is to be expected)

OK, so this is my new solution to surviving the next two terms and hopefully I won’t waste so much time and perhaps do something constructive instead. 😀

However I’ll still have my Facebook app on my phone which this won’t block, I gotta keep up with Facebook! Just not while doing my homework, I’ll just Facebook on my boring bus trip instead, time management at it’s best

Hmm… so some of you may know that I’m on the hunt for a new web host when my current hosting with 3ix.org expires next month. And that couldn’t come sooner I say, stupid me signed up to two years with this host without really doing any proper research, boy was I foolish back then. My experience with 3ix has been less that satisfactory, sure it’s fine for hosting a small website and they promise lots for little (have a look at their plans) but it’s not really good for anything serious or even if you want to start experimenting. They don’t allow SSH access even on their top plan (the one I’m on) and they seriously oversell their servers.

A quick php query on the hard drive shows the space used on my server:

and current CPU load (although mostly this hangs around the lower end of the scale):

CPU: CPU Load: 75% Server Time: 03:50:47 Local Time: 05:49:53 PM

clearly overselling to me!

And to top things off, it looks like they are blocking HTTP requests as I cannot automatically upgrade WordPress or plugins automatically and the feeds on the dashboard give “WP HTTP Error: couldn’t connect to host”. So basically pretty screwed.

So, after having a poke around the NCSS forums, there seems to be a fair few NCSS’ers with blogs.. mainly WordPress powered by the looks of things. So, thanks have to go out to Tim for making Planet NCSS happen :).

Speaking of WordPress, my stupid hosting has been really annoying and FTP keeps breaking so WordPress can’t update or install new themes without manually uploading the files through cPanel. So if anyone is looking for cheap hosting, I would NOT recommend 3ix.org. Considering that this does cost $US8/month, you’d at least think that they could give me SSH access.. but NOOOO, I need to send in ID and a whole bunch of other crap. Goodbye 3ix come May of this year, I’m thinking of moving to WebFaction and trying out Django (I’ve been playing with Django locally and it seems really powerful). Reviews on WebFaction look good, SSH access, ability to install apps to home. Just like a VPS but cheaper and without having to manage a server yourself. I like!

Ohh.. any experts with Django out there? Is is possible to install it onto shared hosting without having shell access cause I have a really crappy hosting company?

Alright, so NCSS 2010 is over and I’m a bit bored so I thought that I might update this blog with a summary of NCSS 2010 cause I can see that people are hitting this website a fair bit trying to download photos (I can also see the server failing). It’s also a good chance to procrastinate and not do study. So I thought I might break this post up into entries and do a sort of diary. I’m not much of a blogger.

Highlights:

Rice

The Final Countdown

James Curran James Curran James Curran

She’s in the mafia!

Double Facepalm!

Arbitary

Doubletap (in both the iPhone sense and the zombie sense)

Day 1:

So, I arrived at USyd a bit late cause dad couldn’t manage to get into Women’s College and park so we had to park a fair bit off and then I had to lug my stuff over to Women’s. Entering the dining hall there was quite a big line for registration. James did his usual thing with the guessing of names and we got all of our stuff including our NCSS ’10 shirts! James did the introduction thingy telling the parents what their children were about to do for the next 10 days and what they would get back after the 10 days and the all nighter.

As I was bored today, I decided to install Windows 7 on my old AMD just to see how well Microsoft have streamlined their latest OS.

It took a fair while to install (perhaps 2-3 hours) but in the end, it was all worth it. It runs pretty slowly and would really only be good for Word and internet but meh. I attempted to play a DVD but it ended up being all jerky.

My System:

AMD Duron @ 800MHz

512MB RAM

80GB Western Digital IDE (Install on 40GB partition)

4MB AGP nVidia Vanta LT

Windows 7 RC Build 7100 32-bit

Obviously alot of this is old hardware and 7 didn’t have any of the drivers for the sound card and was only using a standard VGA driver unlike XP which did contain drivers for my old hardware.